Stars in His Eyes
by Dragon Fairies
Summary: He should have gotten a bad feeling, but he didn't.


Quite often when people speak about days like these, some will tell you that there had been something off that day, like they were walking just out of step in a marching band. Billy, however, was one of those who had no such foretelling of the events that would take place at his school. If he had, he might have tried to play sick, but with a rather observant soul twin, an overprotective boyfriend, and a psychiatrist mother, he would have never pulled it off.

As it were, he had no foreboding feeling as he walked to school that day. The sky was clear. The crisp autumn air filled his lungs. No Avengers wanted him dead so far that day. He'd stolen a kiss from his boyfriend when they had parted ways a block back. All in all, for Billy it seemed like a rather lucky peaceful day. And honestly, it looked as though it was going to stay that way. But as the saying goes, "All good things must come to an end".

Ever since the day Billy had nearly killed John Kesler with a lightning bolt, none of the other students talked to him, let alone interacted with him. Teachers tended to only interact with him only if it was completely necessary. So his school hours were usually pretty quiet. And that was the way it went.

Billy meandered through the school hallways toward his fifth period class, AP Calc, because as much as the Scarlet Witch had been his favorite Avenger, he wanted, not needed to know how Iron Man's armor worked and how super soldiers were made. At least that was his thought process before he became a Young Avenger. Now he aspired to be able to converse with the science minded superheroes on an equal footing.

So with his mind still trying to figure out what the mystery compound of the day was in AP Chem, he made his way to class unhindered by the mass of students. At first it had bothered him that no one wanted anything to do with him at school, but the more ingrained with the Young Avengers he became, the less he cared. Now he just took it as a blessing. No one bothered him, and even though they gave him nasty looks, they never spoke a nasty word either. He could live with that.

The moment Billy stepped into his AP Calc class he should have had one of those feelings. He should have noticed that someone was missing. A someone that had never missed a day of school, even if he had a fever. Unfortunately, Billy had become so distanced from everyone and everything is school, that he couldn't even take notice of that. So in his regular seat in the front of the room next to the door, Billy continued to work on his chemistry until the bell rang.

As the bell gave its final ring Billy placed his chemistry book in his bag as he pulled out his somewhat smaller calc book. Before he could sit back up, however, someone smashed something against the back of his head. He heard a scream as he fell to the floor, although he couldn't tell if it was him, or another kid in the class. Fortunately, or unfortunately, he wasn't hit hard enough to knock him out. In fact, while his skull hurt like he'd been thrown against a wall, he'd… Well he'd been thrown against enough walls that he could still pick himself up. Slowly, he managed to maneuver himself against the side wall, before looking for his attacker. Strangely, after the first attack, Billy was left alone, but as he zeroed in on the rest of the class, he saw someone in a longer coat beating on the teacher with what looked like a tire iron a few feet away.

A senior, Bobby, a well known jock from the baseball team, tried to come up behind the weapon wielding teen. Bobby was thwarted when the now obviously smaller teen whipped the tire iron around at Bobby's face.

"You're not going to touch me Garza." The kid said as he pulled off his jacket showing off a crude bomb. It was at this point Billy could get a good look at the kid's face and Billy was shocked to find that it was his classroom rival, the one kid he battled with over top grades, Tim Marvin. The shock of bright red hair against pale skin and freckles and the boy's thick glasses all pointed to the one kid Billy hadn't thought would anything like this.

One of the girls screamed, but no one moved as Marvin was standing in front of the only exit from the classroom.

"How does it feel to be on the other side?" Marvin's question was rhetorical. I was obvious he didn't want to talk with anyone at this point. "How does it feel to be at my mercy this time? To have to wait for my judgment, instead of you all judging me!"

Marvin turned his back on the class so he could shut the door and not even Bobby Garza moved to try to take Marvin's weapon, because Marvin himself was a weapon now. Billy's head was throbbing and he just wanted this to be over, because even if it hadn't been more than five minutes, it seemed like hours. Their teacher also needed some serious medical attention, so at this point Billy could care less if his secret identity was revealed.

".Iwantthebombtogoaway." He started to mumble to himself unfortunately Marvin heard him. Although, it didn't seem Marvin understood what Billy was saying.

"Shut UP, Kaplan!" The kid screamed as he raised his tire iron. Billy's head throbbed with pain against the noise. "You don't get to say anything anymore! So shut up!" And with that Marvin brought the tire iron down. It smashed into Billy's upper arm. "Shut up!" Again Billy was hit. "Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!" And each time Marvin screamed, he accented it with a strike against Billy's upper body. His ribs, his stomach, his shoulder, but his face Billy covered with his arms, even through the pain. It was not an infallible block, but right before Marvin hit Billy's head again, Billy saw a girl run behind Marvin, and then out the door. After that, everything went black.


End file.
